The accelerated learning handbook

approaches today, and the number is growing steadily as more and more training professionals discover to their delight that they can: • Design programs much faster • Improve measurable l

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The Accelerated

Learning Handbook

A Creative Guide to Designing and Delivering Faster, More Effective Training Programs

by Dave Meier

McGraw-Hill

New York San Francisco Washington, D.C Auckland Bogota Caracas Lisbon London Madrid Mexico City Milan

Montreal New Delhi San Juan Singapore

Sydney Tokyo Toronto

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A Division of the McGraw-Hill Compaines

reserved Printed in the United States of America Except as permitted

under the United States Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this

publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any

means, or stored in a data base or retrieval system, without the prior

written permission of the publisher

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ISBN 0-07-135547-2

The sponsoring editor for this book was Richard Narramore, the editing

supervisor was Janice Race, and the production supervisor was Peter

McCurdy It was set in Sabon Roman and Akzidenz Grotesk.

Printed and bound by Quebecor World/Martinsburg.

McGraw-Hill books are available at special quantity discounts to use as

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This book is printed on recycled, acid-free paper containg a

minimum of 50% recycled, de-inked fiber

C O N T E N T S

Introduction xv

Part 1: The Learning Revolution Chapter 1 - A Brief History of the A.L Movement 3

Chapter 2 - The Guiding Principles of A.L 9

Chapter 3 - Curing the West's Educational Diseases 11

Part 2: Natural Learning Chapter 4 - The Brain and Learning 33

Chapter 5 - The SAVI Approach to Learning 41

Part 3: The Four Phases of Learning Chapter 6 - A Summary of the Four Phases 53

Chapter 7 - Phase 1: Preparation Techniques 59

Chapter 8 - Phase 2: Presentation Techniques 79

Chapter 9 - Phase 3: Practice Techniques 91

Chapter 10 - Phase 4: Performance Techniques 101

Part 4: Additional A.L Tools and Techniques Chapter 11 - Music for Learning 117

Chapter 12 - Themes 123

Chapter 13 - Pictograms 133

Chapter 14 - Question-Raising Techniques 141

Chapter 15 - Learning Games 147

Chapter 16 - Imagery and Learning 157

Preface vii

V

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V I C O N T E N T S

Chapter 17 - Natural Light 169

Chapter 18 - Aromas 173

Part 5: Computers and Accelerated Learning Chapter 19 - Using Technology Wisely 179

Chapter 20 - Public Education and the Web 187

Chapter 21 - Enhancing Technology-Based Learning 193

Part 6: Rapid Instructional Design (RID) Chapter 22 - Rapid Design Principles 211

Chapter 23 - The 7-Step Rapid Design Process 223

Part 7: The Learning Revolution and You Chapter 24 - The Soul of an A.L Practitioner 237

Chapter 25 - Growing A.L in Your Organization 241

Resources: Literature, Music, Organizations Bibliography 249

Discography 257

A.L Resources and Services 261

Index 267

PREFACE

An Accelerated Learning Parable

From The Real World

Here's a story that will help you catch the spirit of Accelerated Learning (A.L.) right from the start You'll encounter this same story later on But it's presented here for those who want an instant grasp of some of the major ideas presented in this book.

It was 9 a.m on a sunny Friday morning in Albuquerque And it was the third and final day of a three-day A.L workshop for 26 trainers at a major

US semiconductor manufacturer The phone in the training room rang It was an emergency call for David, one of the participants David took the call, hastily hung up, and told us that he would have to leave the class for

an hour and a half

He explained that this was the final day of a one-week orientation program for new hires going on in another building on site An hour-and-a-half presentation on safety was scheduled for that morning The person who was to teach it had to cancel So David, who had taught it, was being tapped- and off he went

Rushing to the other location, it dawned on him that he didn't have his presentation materials and handouts What was he to do? Then he recalled

one of the principles of the A.L workshop he was in, namely that learning

is creation, not consumption "That's it!", he thought He immediately had

his plan

Walking into the training room, he found the learners in an advanced and nearly terminal comatose state, having sat all week long while one subject matter expert after the other inundated them with a glut of information

To bring them back to life, David immediately asked them to stand up, count off in fours, and form four teams Then he gave them their instructions The teams were to fan out into the organization for 20

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T H E A C C E L E R A T E D L E A R N I N G H A N D B O O K

minutes to find out as much as they could about safety in the organization

They were asked to encounter existing employees, explain their missionand ask them questions like, "What are the most important safety tips youcan give us? What do we really have to watch out for when we'refabricating semiconductors in the plant? What's the worst thing that couldhappen to us in the factory?" He told them to get as much information asthey could in 20 minutes and bring their findings back to share with thewhole class The teams then left in their quest for knowledge

Twenty minutes later they were back - animated, excited, and definitelyout of the comatose state As each team reported their findings to thegroup, David had to do very little, other than to draw them out with aquestion now and then To his amazement and delight, the learners werecovering everything he would have covered, but in a far more effectiveway And it didn't take an hour and a half In just 50 minutes they hadcovered the material

David got a big round of applause from the class And they told him—

now listen to this— that this was the best presentation they had had all

week!

This true story illustrates beautifully some of the major principles ofaccelerated learning that you'll find in this book, namely:

1 Total learner involvement enhances learning

2 Learning is not the passive storage of informationbut the active creation of knowledge

3 Collaboration among learners greatly enhanceslearning

4 Activity-centered learning events are often superior

to presentation-centered ones

5 Activity-centered learning events can be designed in

a fraction of the time it takes to design centered ones

presentation-P R E F A C E

A Special Note to Training Professionals

Here are a couple of suggestions that will help you get the mostout of applying Accelerated Learning (A.L.) to yourorganization's training needs

Don't Confuse A.L With Fluff

Accelerated Learning has one aim only: to get results You reallyhave to distinguish it from those fun-and-games, gimmicky,

"creative" approaches that call attention to themselves and areoften a big waste of time

The credo of the A.L approach is "Do what works, and keepsearching for what works better." It is not tied to any specific set

of techniques, methods, or media- be they old or new, but canuse any or all of them in combination, depending on their ability

to deliver exceptional results

It's important for you to understand that A.L parts companywith training approaches that attempt to be clever, cute, and funfor their own sake By the same token, it parts company withtraining approaches that are inflexible, stoical, overly serious,and joyless for their own sake There is a place for fun and aplace for seriousness We need both And A.L seeks to blendboth in ways that enhance learning and produce the mostpositive outcomes possible

Leading-Edge Learning

Accelerated Learning is the most advanced learning approach inuse today, and it has many advantages It is based on the latestresearch on the brain and learning It can use a wide variety ofmethods and media It is open and flexible It gets learnerstotally involved It appeals to all learning styles It energizes andrehumanizes the learning process It seeks to make learningenjoyable And it is solidly committed to results, results, results

A.L methods are not set in stone, but can vary greatlydepending on the organization, the subject matter, and thelearners themselves We believe, with the educational writer

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Jacques Barzun, that "teaching is not the application of a system;

it is an exercise in perpetual discretion." What matters most,

after all, is not the method but the outcome

A Proven Approach

Hundreds of organizations are using A.L approaches today, and

the number is growing steadily as more and more training

professionals discover to their delight that they can:

• Design programs much faster

• Improve measurable learning

• Foster more creative, productive employees

• Save tons of time and money for their organizations

For example:

n Stanley quickly designed an upgrade for its soldering program

that emphasized team-based immersion in "the real world." The

course was reduced from 20 hours to 8, with a 30%

improvement in measurable learning

A major North American retailer using A.L methods reduced a

management class in coaching from two days to four hours by

having managers help each other create their own coaching

model and apply it to the job Ninety percent of the participants

reported a measurable improvement in their management skills

That never happened with the two-day non-A.L course

There are many more examples of A.L successes in the section

of this introduction titled The Power of Accelerated Learning.

Check it out The whole point is that this stuff works, and it

works without trivializing the learners on the one hand or

stressing them out on the other

You Need Two Wings to Fly

To be totally successful with A.L., you've got to fly with the two

wings of skepticism and openness Yes, you need them both Try

getting anywhere with just one of those wings exclusively, and

what happens? You fly in ever decreasing circles and

eventualy— thud!— you crash But use them both in tandem

P R E F A C E

and you soar Sometimes we favor one wing over the other, or wefail to use both of them sufficiently to get us off the fence we'reperched on Then we go nowhere fast in fulfilling our roles aslearning leaders

Sometimes we rush to the latest technological panaceawithout first rethinking our assumptions about learning itself Or

we get dazzled by methods that emphasize "fun and games,"

clever gimmicks, and cutesy techniques without a shred ofevidence that these things produce any lasting value

It pays to be skeptical Without discernment you can end upspending mountains of time and tons of money on learningapproaches that trivialize the learner and the learning processand produce little or no long-term benefit

Be Open

While exercising healthy skepticism, it's also essential to s.tayopen to innovations that can result in genuine payoffs

Life is a continual process of movement and change and growth

When we start to think that we've seen it all and heard it all, it's

a danger sign The only people who have truly seen it all andheard it all are the dead For the living, life is always open tounending possibilities And there are new possibilities knocking

on your door all the time if you're open to them

xi

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The universe and we ourselves are in constant flux Nothingalive is dormant but is continually evolving Just because a newway of thinking or doing things departs from your companyculture, or what you've been conditioned to, this does not meanit's bad Nor does it mean it's good But when you keepsearching for the good in the flux of life, separating the wheatfrom the chaff, you stay healthy, viable, and alive— mentally,spiritually, and professionally

By exercising the two wings of skepticism and openness (inbalance), you will be more able to distinguish the artificial fromthe real, find better ways to genuinely optimize learning, andenjoy greater success in your work

A New Approach for The Learning Age

Today we desperately need to update our approaches to learning

to meet the demands of our high metabolism culture And thechanges we need to make are not cosmetic but systemic, notmechanistic but organic

Conventional learning methods, born in an early industrialeconomy, tended to take on a factory look and feel:

mechanization, standardization, external control, all, behavioristic conditioning (the carrot and the stick),fragmentation, and an emphasis on an "I-tell-you-listen" format

one-size-fits-(also known as the Pour and Snore technique) It was the only

way, we felt, to prepare workers for the dreary, repetitive life ofindustrial-type work

But now, training is no longer a matter of preparing docile,obedient factory workers, but knowledge workers who have toconstantly absorb and adjust to new information Nowtraining's goal is not to teach people instinctual responses forrelatively mindless assembly-line jobs, but to ignite people's fullmental and psychological powers for thinking, problem solving,innovating, and learning

Training for The Learning Age is characterized by total learner

involvement, genuine collaboration, variety and diversity inlearning methods, internal (rather than mere external)

motivation, a sense of joy and excitement in learning, and amore thorough integration of learning into the whole oforganizational life The reason? Learning is no longerpreparation for the job, it is the job

The survival and health of individuals and organizations todaydepends on their ability to learn And to learn not prescribed,repetitive behaviors, but how to think, question, explore, create,and constantly grow

Since we're now in a learning culture like never before in history,

finding ways to accelerate and optimize learning is paramount

This Book's Intent

It is not the intent of this book to cover everything that could besaid about accelerated learning and all the developmentsassociated with it over the past 25 years You'll find, forinstance, no discussion of Gardner's theory of multipleintelligences, a topic that has been covered widely and morethan sufficiently by other writers Nor will you find a detailedaccount of the original language training methodologies ofSuggestopedia (which, according to some, jump started thewhole accelerated learning movement)

This book has a very focused mission: It wants to get to theheart of things and enable you to apply accelerated learningprinciples and methods to specific learning programs as quickly

as you can, as widely as you can, and as often as you can

And it wants to give you enough solid grounding in the "why"

so you can accomplish this with intelligence, grace, ongoingcreativity, and assured success

And so this book has been written not as an academic treatisebut as a springboard to practical and immediate action It's notintended for dilettantes but for front line practitioners ofaccelerated learning who want to venture forth and makesubstantial contributions to learning in today's world

Assuming this is you, hold on to this book It will provide youwith inspiration and ideas for fulfilling your vocation, achievingastonishing results, and enjoying your work like never before

Learning is no longerpreparation for the job,

it is the job

Xii

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What Accelerated Learning

Can Do For You

The Aim of This Book

This book has one major aim: to contribute to your

pleasure and competence as a learning facilitator

The book wants to move you beyond today's assumptions

about learning into a fresh understanding that is bound to make

you more creative, more energized, and more successful in your

work

Here's a broad-brush summary of what's in this book

^ • Accelerated learning philosophies and principles

• Hundreds of ideas, tips, and techniques for accelerating

and enhancing learning

• Concrete examples of A.L in action

• A systematic view of the human learning process

• A time-saving rapid design method

• Ideas for enhancing technology-driven learning

• Resources to help you in your work

The Wise Use of This Book

There are hundreds of ideas and techniques in this book ^

that will help you But more than that, it's the A.L

(accelerated learning) philosophy that will really get you

going

It's important for you to understand that A.L is not intended to

be a disjointed collection of clever tricks, gimmicks, and

It's a new day for learning,

and time for a shave

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philosophy and then implementing the appropriate techniques,

you will do far better And you'll experience the joy of being notmerely a collector of other people's techniques but a creator ofyour own

The book is not intended to be read from cover to cover, but to

be a resource that you can use again and again for many years

to come However, I recommend that you read and digest therest of this introduction and the first three chapters to getgrounded in the A.L philosophy Then you can selectivelybrowse the rest of the book, concentrating on those areas ofyour greatest interest and need The initial grounding will helpyou make more sense out of the rest of the book and allow you

to use it more wisely as an aid to your enjoyment and success as

a provider of learning experiences for others

Changing Your Mind

All of us need to reconsider and, in some cases, abandon some

of our assumptions about human learning and corporatetraining Many of the assumptions in our culture and in us areartifacts of the 19th century and need to be jettisoned if we are

to meet the learning challenges of the 21st century

This book will invite you to abandon any assumptions youmight have that are keeping you shackled to the 19th centuryand to embrace more appropriate assumptions that are bound

to make you more successful

W H A T A C C E L E R A T E D L E A R N I N G C A N Do F O R Y o u xvii

The Many Benefits for You

The wise and continued use of this book will result in a number

of positive benefits for you and the people you serve It willenable you to:

• Ignite your creative imagination

• Get learners totally involved

• Create healthier learning environments

• Speed and enhance learning

• Improve retention and job performance

• Speed the design process

• Build effective learning communities

• Greatly improve technology-driven learningImplementing A.L can help your organization save time andmoney, build a healthier work force, and enjoy a better ROI(return on investment), both financially and operationally

Oh yes, and one more thing You will be able to apply many ofthe techniques in this book to your children at home to improvetheir learning effectiveness as well

Some Major Assumptions of A.L.

Here are some of the major assumptions we are making aboutwhat people need in order to optimize their learning You'll findthese assumptions woven throughout this book

A Positive Learning Environment People learn best in a positivephysical, emotional, and social environment, one that is bothrelaxed and stimulating A sense of wholeness, safety, interest,and enjoyment is essential for optimizing human learning

Total Learner Involvement People learn best when they aretotally and actively involved and take full responsibility for theirown learning Learning is not a spectator sport but aparticipatory one Knowledge is not something a learnerpassively absorbs, but something a learner actively creates Thus

'i

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A.L tends to be more activity-based rather than materials-based

or presentations-based

Collaboration Among Learners People generally learn best in

an environment of collaboration All good learning tends to besocial Whereas traditional learning emphasizes competitionbetween isolated individuals, A.L emphasizes collaborationbetween learners in a learning community

Variety That Appeals to All Learning Styles People learn bestwhen they have a rich variety of learning options that allowsthem to use all their senses and exercise their preferred learningstyle Rather than thinking of a learning program as a one-dishmeal, A.L thinks of it as a results-driven, learner-centeredsmorgasbord

Contextual Learning People learn best in context Facts andskills learned in isolation are hard to absorb and quick toevaporate The best learning comes from doing the work itself

in a continual process of "real-world" immersion, feedback,reflection, evaluation, and reimmersion

WHAT A C C E L E R A T E D L E A R N I N G CAN Do FOR You X I X

Summarizing the Difference

Here's a comparison between some of the characteristics of traditional learning vs accelerated learning These are tendencies only and not pure exclusive opposites.

Traditional Learning tends to be:

Rigid

Somber & serious Single-pathed Means-centered Competitive Behavioristic Verbal

ControllingMaterials-centered

Mental (cognitive) Time-based

Accelerated Learning tends to be:

FlexibleJoyfulMulti-pathed

Ends-centered

CollaborativeHumanisticMulti-sensory

Nurturing Activity-centered

Mental/emotional/physical Results-based

iii

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The Spirit of the Thing

A.L is an integrated philosophy of life and of learning As such,

it's a whole new view of things that demechanizes and

re-humanizes learning and puts the learner (not the teacher, not the

materials, not the presentations) squarely in the center of things

A.L is systemic, not cosmetic You can't do it successfully

without having it affect your whole system, your whole self,

and your whole organization People who get the most from

A.L treat it as a way of life For these people, learners become

not vessels to be filled, but fires to be ignited Learning

programs are not seen as propaganda, or indoctrination, or

conditioning, or stimulus/response "training", but as vehicles

for the nurture of full life and intelligence and spirit in people

You can ignore many parts of this book and go for those

techniques that are most important for you right now But I wish

in my gut that you would not ignore the book's central premise:

that in a high-tech culture such as ours, it's essential to keep

alive the human element, which is the most important ingredient

in learning

The Joy of Learning

Most books for learning facilitators are devoted to explaining

how to use certain prescribed techniques, procedures, methods,

and media It's all very serious stuff Sad to say, most of those

technique-laden books never talk about the joy of learning Yet

it's the joy of learning that is often the major determiner of the

quality and quantity of learning that can go on

A.L practitioners want learners to experience the joy of learning

because they know how important it is This kind of "joy" does

not mean hats, horns, and hoopla It's got nothing to do with

mindless bliss and shallow fluff But this "joy" means interest,

connectedness, and the involved and happy creation of meaning

and understanding and value on the part of the learner It's the

joy of giving birth to something new And this joy is far more

significant for learning than any technique or method or

medium you might choose to use

W H A T A C C E L E R A T E D L E A R N I N G C A N Do F O R Y o u

Recurring Themes

Throughout this book, many of the underlying themes of A.L

recur again and again This is similar to a symphony or musicalcomposition in which a musical theme is repeated in differentcontexts to integrate the work Weaving the basic themes of A.L

throughout this book is a way to tie this book together andprovide you with steady and repeated reinforcement as youcreate your own meaning and value out of the ideas presented

Lighten Up

Please don't take any of the ideas, statements, or principles inthis book as dogmatic absolutes This book does not attempt tospeak the last word about education and training, only a fewfirst words in order to stimulate thought, discussion, andpositive action Use the book as a springboard, if you can, andthen go beyond it It's liberating to know that none of us (and

no book) will ever be able to exhaust the creative possibilitiesfor learning and for life

The Aim of Accelerated Learning

The purpose of A.L is to awaken learners to their full learningability, to make learning enjoyable and fulfilling for them again,and to contribute to their full human happiness, intelligence,competence, and success

Accelerated Learning Is a Result

Accelerated learning is, first and foremost, an end, not ameans Put another way: accelerated learning is the resultsachieved, not the methods used It's essential to associateaccelerated learning with outcomes and not with particularmethods (games, music, color, activities, etc.) Whatevermethods work to accelerate and enhance learning are, by thisdefinition, accelerated learning methods And whatevermethods do not produce an accelerated and enhanced learning

XXI

Accelerated learning is theresults achieved not themethods used

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A.L: A Philosophy in Tune With the Times

Accelerated learning encompasses a large and ever expandingnumber of techniques (you'll encounter hundreds of them in thisbook) but it's far more than that At heart it's a philosophy oflearning and of life that seeks to demechanize and rehumanizethe learning process and make it a whole-body, whole-mind,whole-person experience As such, it seeks to re-form many ofthe limiting beliefs and practices inherited from the past

A.L is part of a larger grass-roots movement taking place todaynot only in education, but in agriculture, in medicine, incommunity life, and elsewhere— a movement to recover thereal— a movement to realign human life with the natural, thehumanistic, the organic— a movement away from the artificial,the mechanistic, and the contrived— and a movement tonurture human intelligence on all levels (rational, emotional,physical, social, intuitive, creative, ecological, spiritual, ethical,etc.) and make learning effective again

Accelerated Learning is to

education and training

vhat organic agriculture

is to the factory farm

It's Just Natural

Accelerated learning is natural learning It's based on the way

people naturally learn The beautiful thing about A.L is that wealready know all about it instinctively As children, we practiced

it every day of our lives We learned all the basics not throughsitting in a classroom, reading a book, or staring at a computerscreen, but through interacting with others and with the worldusing our whole bodies, our whole minds, our whole selves

W H A T A C C E L E R A T E D L E A R N I N G C A N Do F O R Y o u XXIII

Open Bowl Learning: The Child

As children we learn on many levels simultaneously We areopen— as open as a wide-mouthed bowl that receiveseverything pouring into it from the environment Learning isfast Retention is excellent

Pinched Vase Learning: The Adult

But then structured education intervenes The wide-mouthedbowl of the child is pinched into a narrow-mouthed vase of theadult Learning now becomes controlled, structured,standardized, mechanized, and exclusively verbal What enters

us now is a linear, one-thing-at-a-time trickle of informationdoled out to us by the instructional medium, be it a person ormachine Learning invariably deteriorates

Knowledge

The Child

Knowledge

The Adult

Opening Again to Our Full Capacity

Accelerated learning seeks to pry open that narrow mouth oflinear learning so that people can become open bowls again,taking in knowledge with all their senses and with their wholeselves, learning on many levels simultaneously, learning oncemore with the power of a child

As it turns out, we adults have far more capacity for learningthan has been recognized and utilized by the linear, verbal,cognitive approaches of formalized education Georgi Lozanov,

a seminal researcher in accelerated learning, speaks of "thereserves of the mind." He points out that rational consciousness

is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of one's full mental capacity

People learn, he says, on many levels simultaneously, most ofwhich are in addition to the cognitive and verbal processing ofrational consciousness

Knowledge

The Accelerated Learner

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Whole-Mind, Whole-Body Learning

Research now indicates that people learn through their wholebodies and their whole minds verbally, nonverbally, rationally,emotionally, physically, intuitively— all at the same time

This would explain why learning simultaneously by immersion

is far superior than learning one little thing at a time sequentiallyoff-line and out of context (This also explains why you couldlearn more French living with a French family in Paris for threemonths than you could learn by taking high school French forthree years.)

You see now why accelerated learning is concerned about thetotal context of a learning environment and not merely aboutthe content alone A.L seeks to place learners in environmentsthat are positive physically, emotionally, and socially and to givethem an experience of learning by immersion that is as close tothe real world as possible

The Revolution in Learning

Nineteenth and early twentieth-century beliefs in the Westtended to make learning dreary, slow, and ineffective And nosophisticated technology or clever "techniques" built upon thisold foundation has helped correct the problem What we need

is an entirely new foundation

The old foundation is based on learners as consumers, on

individual performance, on compartmentalization (of people

and subject matter), on centralized bureaucratic control, ontrainers as platform performers, on learning as primarily verbaland cognitive, and on training programs as assembly lineprocesses

The new foundation is based on learners as creators, on

collaboration and group performance, on interconnectedness,

on learning as a whole mind/body activity, and on learningprograms that provide option-rich learning environments forappealing to all learning styles

to realize it

Twenty-First-Century Learning

Today, the task of education and training is to prepare peoplefor a world in flux, a world in which everyone needs to exercisetheir full powers of mind and heart and act out of a sense ofmindful creativity, not mindless predictability Rather thanproducing "carbon copy" people as in the 19th century, we nowneed to produce "originals" who can exercise the energy of theirfull potential and promise We need to release everyone's uniqueintelligence and not suppress it in the name of standardization

or "company culture." There is no more business as usual Onevery level we must all be innovators

A Return to Wholeness

Of paramount importance in accelerated learning is a sense ofwholeness— wholeness of knowledge, of the individual, of theorganization, and of life itself This is in sharp contrast to thecompartmentalization of the past Western science sinceAristotle has been concerned about isolating, analyzing, andcategorizing the separate elements of existence This has led tothe fragmentation of learning and of life

Today we need to become whole again We need to understandthat learning is not an isolated cognitive event but somethinginvolving a person's whole self (body, mind, and soul) and all of

;iv

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It works Using

accelerated learning

techniques on two of our

major courses, we have

been able to cut training

time virtually in half while

a person's unique intelligences

Learners are no longer seen as passive consumers of someoneelse's information, but as active creators of their own knowledgeand skill Therein lies the revolution, and therein lies the uniquecontribution of the ideas and methods you'll discover in thisbook

Organizational Payoffs

Accelerated Learning is paying off handsomely for manyorganizations Here are just a few examples

A major US semiconductor manufacturer improved by 507%

the measurable learning in a course on safety and hazardouschemicals The company did it by creating a learningsmorgasbord in which learners could choose their own paththrough the curriculum from an array of options (print media,audio, video) And collaboration among learners wasencouraged throughout

Travelers Insurance did side-by-side pilots, comparingconventional training methods with accelerated learning onesfor teaching a new computerized system to claim adjusters Inthe conventional class, 12% of the learners received test scores

of 85 and above In the A.L group, 67% tested at 85 and above(an improvement of over 400%) And they did it in 20% lesstime The secret? Stress reduction, collaboration amonglearners, and the use of imagery mnemonics

Florida Community College used A.L methods to improvecomputer learning by a factor of four by putting two people to

a computer and making them responsible for one another'slearning

Bell Atlantic cut training time in half and improved measurablejob performance when they converted their initial training ofcustomer service reps to an A.L format The new trainingemphasized an emotionally stimulating environment, variety intraining methods, total learner involvement, and collaborationamong learners

W H A T A C C E L E R A T E D L E A R N I N G C A N Do F O R Y o u XXVII

US West, in preparing new hires to be customer service reps for

their cellular phone business, found conventional methods(lecture, reading, etc.) to be ineffective So they had learners actout cellular systems, individual learners playing the roles ofcellular phones, cell sites (transmission towers), and land-lineequipment (for non-cellular phones), and establishing variousconnections with a rope Instructors Shirley Walker and MikePatricks found this to be overwhelmingly superior toconventional classroom methods in speeding and optimizingeveryone's learning

AGFA designers Lynn Brown and Jerry DelVecchio upgraded anexisting teambuilding course with an A.L version that theydesigned in just one hour They cut course time from 8 1/2 hours

to 6, improving the learning The new program, they say, is allactivity based and gets the learners totally involved, whichaccounts for its great success

Personal Payoffs

The personal payoffs that A.L practitioners are enjoying arejust as exciting as they experience unprecedented success withthe methods Many claim that A.L has changed their lives Theyreport finding new creative energy for their work, as they areable to design faster, improve learning and job performance,bring more creativity and joy to the workplace, and have awhale of a good time doing it For example:

Terri Schoedel of GE Capital wrote us these words:

"Accelerated Learning is revolutionary It has improved learnerand trainer productivity in our organization immeasurably Thelearners are stimulated, liberated, and ultimately more spirited

Accelerated Learning techniques are triumphant to say theleast."

Daphne Fitzgerald, President of Zurich Canada's GroupInsurance Division is equally enthusiastic: "There's no doubt in

my mind that the accelerated learning approach is the idealstrategy for our business We have achieved immediate andmeasurable results with the programs we have developed."

l\

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Charlie King of Southern Nuclear says: "Since we started usingA.L., our instructors have never been as concerned aboutmaking training more interesting, creative, and fun How dostudents like it? We've never had better feedback."

Joan Shuckenbrock, when training manager for ContinentalAirlines, wrote us these words after her staff was trained inaccelerated learning: "It's a joy to come to work again becauseeveryone is being so creative."

Benjamin Harris of People's Energy Co says: " A.L has proven

to be a recharger for body, soul, and mind for someone whothought he knew what experiential education was all about."

And There's More

The following page contains a summary of some of the resultscompanies are experiencing And you'll find many otherexamples of A.L successes scattered throughout this book

W H A T A C C E L E R A T E D L E A R N I N G C A N Do F O R Y o u XXIX

Achievements of A.L PractitionersHere's a small sampling of what some organizations have experienced with A.L

Company Application Results

American Airlines Reservationists Training Reduced training time for a lesson

by 50% Improved the retentionsignificantly

Bell Atlantic Customer Service Rep Cut training time in half while

improving measurable performance,]

Training

Reduced training time by 50%while achieving same or betterlearning

Consolidated Edison Cable Splicing Course Passing rate increased from 30% tol

100% in same time

Commonwealth Edison Time Keeper Training Cut class time in half while greatly

improving test scores, long-termretention and student evaluations.Florida Community

College

Lotus 1-2-3 Course Students learned 75% faster while

enjoying the training much more.Fortune 100 Midwest

Manufacturer

Inventory Management Reduced training time by 60%Course while improving learning

Kodak Electronics Course Cut training time by a third and

improved long-term retention by25%

Major US Semiconductor Hazcom and SafetyManufacturer Training

Improved measurable learning by507% in the same time frame.Bell Atlantic Telephone Skills

Cut training time by 20%

improving test scores by 480%.Major Retail

Chain

Coaching Skillsfor Managers

Reduced training time by 75%while achieving better results.Obviously, there is something going on here

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Since accelerated learning (A.L.) is natural learning, its roots go

far back into antiquity (It has been practiced by every child ever

born.) But in terms of a modern movement to revolutionize

learning within structured education and training in Western

culture, it sprung from a number of influences during the last

half of the 20th Century

The Lozanov Approach

In the 1970s, Lynn Schroeder and Sheila Ostrander published a

book called Superlearning that reported on the work of

Bulgarian psychiatrist Georgi Lozanov It got the attention of

many educators and teachers searching for more effective

approaches to learning

Lozanov found that by relaxing psychiatric patients with

Baroque music and giving them positive suggestions about their

healing, many made substantial progress He had found a way,

he felt, to tap into something in the psyche deeper than rational

consciousness (He called this "the hidden reserves of the

mind.")

He felt that these methods could be applied to education as well

Under sponsorship of the Bulgarian government he began doing

research into the effects of music and positive suggestion on

learning using foreign language as the subject matter He found

that the combination of music, suggestions, and childlike play

allowed learners to learn significantly faster and more

effectively Word of his discovery ignited the imaginations of

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language teachers and nonstandard educators everywhere

In the 1970's, Don Schuster, of Iowa State University, andeducators Ray Bordon and Charles Gritton, began applyingthese methods to high school and university teaching withpositive results In 1975 they and others established SALT (TheSociety for Accelerative Learning and Teaching) and begansponsoring international conferences that attracted collegeprofessors, public school educators, and corporate trainers fromaround the world SALT is now in its 25th year It has renameditself IAL (The International Alliance for Learning) and stillsponsors annual conferences in the United States for aninternational audience

England has a similar group called S.E.A.L (Society forEffective Affective Learning), and practitions in Germany haveformed D.S.G.L (The German Society for SuggestopedicTeaching and Learning)

Other Influences on the Growth of A.L

Many other factors have contributed to a steady and sustainedgrowth in A.L philosophies, methods, and applications Hereare just a few of them

1 Modern cognitive science, particularly research into thebrain and learning, has thrown into question many of ourold assumptions about learning Gone is the notion thatlearning is simply a verbal, "cognitive," head thing Currentresearch indicates that the best learning involves theemotions, the whole body, all the senses, and the fullbreadth and depth of the personality (what Lozanov wouldcall "the hidden reserves of the mind")

2 Learning styles research has indicated that different peoplelearn in different ways and that one size does not fit all Thishas seriously challenged our idea of formal education andtraining as a cookie-cutter, assembly line process

3 The collapse of the Newtonian world view (that natureworks like a machine, automatically obedient toindependent, linear, step-by-step processes) and the rise of

A B R I E F H I S T O R Y OF T H E A L M O V E M E N T

quantum physics has given us a new appreciation for theinterconnectedness of all things and for the nonlinear, non-mechanistic, creative, and "alive" nature of reality

4 The gradual (yet incomplete) evolution from a maledominant culture to one that balances male and femalesensibilities is allowing for more of a gentle, collaborative,and nurturing approach to learning

5 The decline of Behaviorism as the dominant psychology inlearning has led to the rise of more humanistic and holisticbeliefs and practices

6 Several parallel movements in the 20th century have keptalive alternate educational approaches: The ProgressiveSchool Movement starting in the 1920s, the ConfluentEducation Movement starting in the the 40s, theHumanistic Education Movement starting in the 50s, andthe Free School Movement of the 60s Also of someinfluence have been the Montessori Schools of MariaMontessori, the Waldorf Schools of Rudolph Steiner, andthe Summerhill School movement in England championed

by Alexander Sutherland Neill

7 The constantly changing nature of the workplace and ofculture itself has rendered many of our methods ofeducation and training slow and obsolete and has openedthe door to alternative approaches

The Growth of A.L in Corporations

In 1986, Mary Jane Gill, a training director at Bell Atlantic,attended a workshop on A.L in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin,

sponsored by the Center for Accelerated Learning.

She returned home and arranged for one of Bell Atlantic's old,obsolete courses for customer service rep training to be re-written in an A.L format The results were dramatic Trainingtime was cut in half while learning and job performanceimproved measurably

Mary Jane and I coauthored an article on this success titledt

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Accelerated Learning Takes Off at Bell Atlantic that appeared

in the Journal of the American Society for Training and

Development in January of 1989.

The word was out All the major U.S phone companies thenjoined in and began applying A.L techniques to their customerservice rep training with very positive results Other organizationsfollowed suit and A.L., still far from the mainstream, became analternative that was proving itself over and over as a way to speedand enhance learning for corporate training departments

An Expanding Movement

As with any new departure from the norm, A.L has sometimesbeen misidentified as merely games and clever techniques(without a deep understanding of, and commitment to, itsunderlying principles) and thus has suffered some false starts

And once in a while rogues and semi-rouges have rushed in whohave been more interested in making money than makingchanges and have missed the point completely And then therehas been the ever present inertia of traditional educationalapproaches that has tended to erode fresh new starts over time

in order to return to the comfortable but deadly norm

But despite all this, A.L has survived and thrived in the mindsand hearts of many teachers and trainers who resonate with itshumanistic, holistic, and positive spiritual center And they'remaking a difference

As of this writing, hundreds of organizations have had theirstaffs educated in accelerated learning philosophies andmethods Though there is still a long way to go, A.L isbecoming increasingly accepted as a new standard for teachingand learning in many corporations and, happily, even in anumber of forward-looking community colleges and schools

Because of the substantial value it is bringing to people and toorganizations, the number of A.L practitioners in the U.S.,Canada, and all over the world is growing daily

A B R I E F H I S T O R Y OF T H E A L M O V E M E N T

Making History

To write a full history of A.L and to mention all the people whohave played and are playing seminal roles in its growth incorporations and schools would fill this book We will spare youthe details so that you can get on with the business of joiningthem and making your own history as a facilitator ofaccelerated learning methods where you live and work

>

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CHAPTER 2

The Guiding Principles

of Accelerated Learning

To get the most out of using accelerated learning, it's essential to

get a firm grasp on its underlying principles A.L will fail for

those who abstract its methods from its ideological

underpinnings, reducing A.L to clever gimmicks and

creative "techniques" while ignoring the principles on

which those techniques are based

A.L training programs that are the most successful

operate out of the following foundation principles:

1 Learning Involves the Whole Mind and

Body Learning is not at all merely "head"

learning (conscious, rational,

"left-brained," and verbal) but involves the whole

body/mind with its all its emotions, senses, and

receptors

2 Learning Is Creation, Not Consumption Knowledge is not

something a learner absorbs, but something a learner creates

Learning happens when a learner integrates new knowledge

and skill into his or her existing structure of self Learning is

literally a matter of creating new meanings, new neural

networks, and new patterns of electro/chemical interactions

within one's total brain/body system

3 Collaboration Aids Learning All good learning has a social

base We often learn more by interacting with peers than we

learn by any other means Competition between learners

slows learning Cooperation among learners speeds it A

genuine learning community is always better for learning

than a collection of isolated individuals

4 Learning Takes Place on Many Levels Simultaneously.

Learning is not a matter of absorbing one little thing at a time

in linear fashion but absobing many things at once Good

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learning engages people on many levels simultaneously(conscious and paraconscious, mental and physical) and usesall the receptors and senses and paths it can into a person'stotal brain/body system The brain, after all, is not asequential, but a parallel processor and thrives when it ischallenged to do many things at once

5 Learning Comes From Doing the Work Itself (WithFeedback) People learn best in context Things learned inisolation are hard to remember and quick to evaporate Welearn how to swim by swimming, how to manage bymanaging, how to sing by singing, how to sell by selling, andhow to care for customers by caring for customers The realand the concrete are far better teachers than the hypotheticaland the abstract— provided there is time for total immersion,feedback, reflection, and reimmersion

6 Positive Emotions Greatly Improve Learning Feelingsdetermine both the quality and quantity of one's learning

Negative feelings inhibit learning Positive feelings accelerate

it Learning that is stressful, painful, and dreary can't hold acandle to learning that is joyful, relaxed, and engaging

7 The Image Brain Absorbs Information Instantly andAutomatically The human nervous system is more of animage processor than a word processor Concrete images aremuch easier to grasp and retain than are verbal abstractions

Translating verbal abstractions into concrete images of allkinds will make those verbal abstractions faster to learn andeasier to remember

CHAPTER 3

Curing the West's Educational Diseases

Most of us adults are learning disabled and we don't even know

it What has disabled us (and continues to do so) are learningbeliefs and practices inherited from the past and now integratedinto our culture

These disabling beliefs and practices, representing centuries oldtrends in the West, came to final institutionalized form in the19th century with the establishment of the compulsoryeducation system in the United States Now they're embedded inboth public education and corporate training like entrencheddiseases that are hard to shake

What makes these 19th-century assumptions about learning sopowerful and deadly is that they are hidden— taken for granted

as the way things have been, are, and always will be Few peoplequestion these assumptions Fewer yet have taken steps toovercome them Obviously we need a revolution in our wholeapproach to learning so we can rid ourselves of the culturallyimposed beliefs and practices that have made learning so dismal,unnatural, difficult, and ineffective for so many people

One way to rid ourselves of these debilitating beliefs andpractices is to understand where they came from and how theygot planted in us in the first place Once we've done that, we're

no longer obliged to blindly perpetuate them Rather we are free

to creatively construct new and more effective approaches tolearning If this is something you want to do, read on

The West's Educational Diseases

What follows is a look at some of the major 19th-century

"diseases" that have infected our educational beliefs andpractices in the West, and some suggestions for cure Of course

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3 The Factory Model

4 Western Scientific Thought

in the rest of the country New England, of course, wascolonized by the Puritans, and their philosophies exerted aprofound influence on all the institutions of the New Englandculture The assumptions of Puritanism, then, quite naturallybecame embedded in the very foundation of Americaneducation

Learning, for the Puritans, was indoctrination— often a dreary,joyless, and rote affair John Robinson, a Pilgrim teacher andleader, summed up the Puritan attitude toward education in his

essay, Children and Their Education as quoted by A.M Earle in

his 1899 book Child Life in Colonial Days.

Surely there is in all children a stubbornness andstoutness of minde arising from natural pridewhich must in the first place be broken and beatendown so that the foundation of their educationbeing layd in humilitie and tractableness, othervirtues may in their time be build thereon

C U R I N G T H E W E S T ' S E D U C A T I O N A L D I S E A S E S 13

Then he went on to compare educating a child to training ahorse to take the bit in its mouth and a rider on its back As

Ichabod Crane, the school master in Washington Irving's The

Legend of Sleepy Hollow summed it up: "Spare the rod and

spoil the child."

Discipline was central to the early system So much so that somecitizens felt that there was little time left for actual learning Buttheir concerns were overruled by the strong Puritan influence

Pain and corporal punishment were felt to be essential

components of child education The old song School Days

written in 1906 says it all:

School days, school days,Dear old Golden Rule days!

Reading and writing an 'rithmeticTaught to the tune of a hickory stick!

There you have it The hickory stick The marriage of pain andlearning Banished is the sense of joy and freedom in learning

Replacing it is the notion of rigor, starkness, stress,incarceration, control from above, and a conscious avoidance ofpleasure (As Mark Twain once said, "Puritanism ischaracterized by the haunting fear that someone somewheremight be happy.") And so the notion of pain and the notion oflearning got fused in the American educational system It still isfor many people unconsciously

In academia the marriage of pain and learning is all too evident

Of course this varies greatly from school to school and fromteacher to teacher, but often "no pain no gain" is the hiddenbelief Joyful, stressless learning is suspect Exuberance, passion,and wild creativity must be suppressed and tamed Rigor andcold, analytical logic are deemed to be the only true paths toknowledge A certain degree of mental suffering is felt to beinevitable in the quest for knowledge

The Puritan influence is deeply embedded in many corporations

as well For instance, what do you suppose is the automaticknee-jerk reaction of the average corporate executive who hearslaughter and frivolity coming from a training room? Most likelyit's something like, "Why don't these people get down to

It sounds like somethingYogi Berra might say,but the trouble

with the Pilgrimswas that theywere so Puritanical

And education and

training in the U.S.has been sufferingfrom this ever since

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When your soul is happy,

your learning is snappy

Ichabod Crane is still very much with us

Edward T Hall in his spirited 1976 book Beyond Culture put

his finger on it when he said:

"Somehow in the United States we havemanaged to transform one of the mostrewarding of all human activities (i.e., learning)into a painful, boring, dull, fragmenting,

mind-shrinking, soul-shriveling experience."

The Cure

The best antidote to Puritanism, according to acceleratedlearning theory, is to restore the joy to learning Both childrenand adults do best in learning environments characterized bypersonal interest and happiness, and not in environmentscharacterized by intimidation, boredom, stress, irrelevance, orpain The "joy" that is an essential ingredient of accelerated

learning has nothing to do with mindless bliss or shallow,

hats-and-horns hoopla, but is a deep and quiet peace and a sense ofconnectedness, wholeness, and involvement Acceleratedlearning practitioners are always searching for ways to makelearning joyful again, in the deepest meaning of that word,because they know that a sense of joy is at the heart of allexceptional learning

We have a great deal to learn from small children about this

They are the greatest accelerated learners in the world becausethey learn with such joy Therefore, if you have a dry, boring,and mind-numbing subject to teach, ask yourself, "How would

I teach this to children? How can I make learning this a joyful

experience?" Asking and answering these questions again andagain over time will cure any addiction you and yourorganization might have to educational Puritanism Andlearning will improve dramatically Enhanced learning stemsfrom a sense of joy for children and adults alike

Disease #2: Individualism

American education has been a reflection of the culture in which

it was born And that culture was steeped in individualism—

individual salvation, the lone pioneer, and the individualentrepreneur struggling alone and winning against all odds

Most societies throughout history believed differently Theycentered their life in the family, the tribe, the group Not so inAmerica "Each man for himself" became the unwritten law ofthe land

Driven by this bias toward excessive individualism, universitiesdeveloped with almost no sense of the social nature of learning

Rather, education emphasized individual achievement Gradingwas strictly individualistic and sometimes based on a curve— somany A's, so many B's Learners thus competed with each otherfor grades and high honors It was thought to be the purpose ofhigher education to produce strong, self-reliant individuals whocould work independently and in isolation (as the early settlersoften had to do) And competition among these isolated learnerswas thought to be a goad toward greater individualachievement The unspoken rule was: "Learn from your teacherand compete with your peers."

Thus education and training often became a matter of solitaryconfinement, and there was very little emphasis on learning ingroups The behavioristic teaching machines that wereintroduced into schools and corporations after the 2nd WorldWar were placed, of course, in individual carrels Likewise, CAI(computer-aided instruction) that followed the flop of theseteaching machines kept the same "learning in isolation"

philosophy More recent multimedia learning systems have done

no better, often retaining the same addiction to theindividualistic learning approach And now it's on to the Web

Our sense ofindividualism-that each of us is aloneand separate-

is a culturally implantedhallucination

-Alan Watts

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T H E A C C E L E R A T E D L E A R N I N G H A N D B O O K

Here we go again

This addiction to excessive individualism and competition ineducation and training has cost us dearly Isolation has oftenraised stress levels and reduced the speed, quality, and durability

of learning And the competitive approach has often madelearners reluctant to ask questions and seek help from oneanother, choking off the free flow of information, knowledge,intelligence, and learning

The Cure

All good learning is social At least for the overwhelmingmajority of people When people help each other learn (whetherchildren or adults), learning improves significantly Research atthe University of Minnesota, for instance, has indicated that,when learning from computers, if you put two people together

on one machine and structure it so that they dialog with eachother and take responsibility for each other, both the quality andthe quantity of learning goes up for both of them

A study at Stanford University (H.M Levine, "Cost and Effectiveness of Computer-Assisted Instruction) found that peertutoring was four times more effective for improving math andreading achievement than either reduced class size or lengthenedinstruction time, and significantly more effective thanindividual computer-based instruction

Cost-In the training world, I have seen miracles occur when aclass changed from a collection of isolated individuals to alearning community I have seen learning speed andretention increase by more than 300% (in a computer class

at Florida Community College), failure rates drop from40% to 2% (in a customer service rep training program atBell Atlantic), test scores improve by more than 400% (in aclaims processing course at Travelers Insurance) The reason?

Most people learn better in community than they do inisolation When everyone in a learning group is a teacher and alearner simultaneously, the stress level goes way down and the

learning shoots way up

If you do nothing else to improve learning, get people to worktogether in partnerships, small teams, or as a whole group It willhave an immediate and profound effect on

the learning This is because, despite howour educational institutions haveconditioned us, the best kind of learning has IN

a strong social base

Disease #3: The Factory Model

Formalized American education was defined in New Englandduring the full flower of the Industrial Revolution The menwho put together America's "common schools" in NewEngland were greatly influenced by the factory model whichsurrounded them on all sides The early schools were, in fact, theconscious and "scientific" application of mass productiontechniques to public education

And so, the assembly line school was born— with everythingsequenced, controlled, compartmentalized, and standardized bythe central office Children were separated by age Curriculumwas prescribed for each stage of the production process

Everyone adhered to the strict timings of the productionschedule (Eight years of this and four years of that— ka-chunk,ka-chunk, ka-chunk.) Teachers became production linesupervisors Production came to be run by the numbers And ahuge bureaucracy arose to control, measure, and manage thiswhole gigantic enterprise

Some schools became no more than detention homes forwarehousing the young; penal institutions where children wereforced to "do time" for a prescribed number of years (Theterm, "We're out of school!" is still synonymous with "We'reout of prison!") But today the prisoners are escaping from thefactory schools in unprecedented numbers, particularly in thebig cities As of this writing, Boston's school drop-out rate isabout 45% New York City's is close to 70% Obviously thefactory model of school is no longer working And it's ironic

We abandon old factories and production processes for new

Our schools are, in asense, factories in whichthe raw products(children) are to be

shaped and fashioned intoproducts to meet thevarious demands of life,-from a 1916 book

on school administration

by E.R Cubberly

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ones when their technology becomes obsolete, but we won't do

the same with the schools It seems we are too addicted to the

factory model of education to have any real clue as to what to

do to truly reform education in our time

The factory schools have had a profound effect on corporate

training as well The one-path, standardized, cookie-cutter,

time-based, and classroom-confined (and computer-confined)

approach to learning became the norm Corporate training

tended to become overly formalized, compartmentalized,

disconnected, and artificial And learners often sensed the great

disparity between many standardized corporate training

programs and "the real world."

Assembly line learning forced a one-size-fits-all linearity on

everyone and often resulted in hobbled learning, poor

transference, and a huge waste of time and money Many

corporations now hope that a new assembly line— the

computer and the web— will solve all their training problems

It won't All we're doing is automating the assembly line,

putting stale wine in new bottles and calling it progress We're

still hoping for one standardized solution Our addiction to

one-size-fits-all assembly line learning still controls us

The Cure

According to accelerated learning theory, the one-dish meal of

education and training needs to be replaced with a

smorgasbord if we are to optimize learning for everyone

There is not one best way There are many There is not one

single path to successful learning There are many Our

devotion to either/or thinking must give place to both/and

thinking if we are to fulfill the promise of accelerated learning

By concentrating on ends, not means, we'll lose our addiction

to the one-size-fits-all approach of assembly line learning and

we'll be able to achieve better results Computers? Sure

Classrooms? Sure Mentoring programs? Sure The Web? Sure

Team-based learning? Certainly Self-paced learning? You

bet'cha Embedded learning? Absolutely You can usewhatever gets the job done for different people and differentsolutions The same subject matter can be cast into manydifferent forms to appeal to the full range of personality typesand learning styles People can be made responsible for theirown learning as they choose their own path to competencefrom an array of options Learning is enhanced when it is asmorgasbord rather than a one-dish meal

Disease #4: Western Scientific Thinking

The scientific worldview that developed from the 16th century

on formed the modern world

Two pivotal beliefs (owing to the work of Rene Descartes,Isaac Newton, and others) helped shape this worldview:

1 There are two separate realms, the outer world ofphysical nature, and the inner world of nonphysicalmind (This is often referred to as the body-mind split.)

2 Each separate component in the outer world of nature(the human body included) is like a well-orderedmachine that operates according to predeterminedmechanical laws that we can learn how to understandand manipulate The inner world of mind and spirit is,

by comparison, of much less concern and consequence

These beliefs spawned the industrial and technologicalrevolution in the West that changed the course of history,brought unprecedented wealth to civilization, and raised thestandard of living in many positive ways for hundreds ofmillions of people

But this mechanistic worldview also brought with it someunwanted baggage: it led to the despiritualization of theworld, the exploitation of nature, excessive competitiveindividualism, the dehumanization of work life, and humanalienation on many levels

When applied to social thinking, the mechanistic worldviewbecame the foundation for the psychology of behaviorism, a

Western science

came to believe that

each separate component

of nature was like asoulless clockworkmechanism, operatingindependently according

to its own separatepredetermined laws.What a cuckoo idea!

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20 T H E A C C E L E R A T E D L E A R N I N G H A N D B O O K

major influence on training for the bulk of the 20th century

Behaviorism's concern was with finding ways to manipulate

one's external behavior while ignoring the relevancy of one's

inner world It sought to "engineer" people's externalperformance as if human beings were machines to bemanipulated (Serious behaviorists and many practitioners ofNeuro-Linguistic Programming still believe this, from what Ican tell.)

Too, the mechanistic worldview believed nature to be made up

of separate disconnected parts, each operating according to itsown prescribed laws This led to the fragmentation ofknowledge and learning Learning was divided into separatesubjects, each one taught in isolation Subjects were oftentaught "off-line" in strict linear fashion, disconnected fromtheir simultaneous and systemic interrelationships with otherfactors in the real worlds

Non-contextual, piecemeal and mechanical teachingapproaches allowed people to be programmed to make quickrobotic responses within a narrow framework, but often leftthem spiritually weak, passionless, emotionally isolated, andwithout the ability to think outside the box and create newpossibilities for themselves and their organizations

If you're interested in exploring the effects of the mechanisticworldview further, here are a few books that I can recommend:

The Corrupted Sciences, A Arnold, Harper Collins, 1992; The Quantum Society, Danah Zohar, William Morrow, 1994;

Descartes' Error, Antonio Damasio, Putnam, 1994; and The Resurgence of the Real, Charlene Spretnak, Routledge, 1999.

The Cure

We can help heal the devastating effect of the mechanisticworldview on learning by having people learn holistically and incontext Since experience is the greatest teacher, it's best thatpeople not merely learn about a subject off-line, but (as much aspossible) experience it firsthand in its real-world setting This is

messier, has more ambiguity, and may not be as easy to control,but the cycle of real-world trial, feedback, and retrial is manytimes more effective than off-line learning You don't learn best

by listening to a lecture or staring at a computer screen Youlearn best by experience, by doing the work itself

Whereas traditional instructional design emphasizes learningone thing at a time in nice, neat, logical sequence, acceleratedlearning emphasizes learning many things simultaneously in areal-world environment Learning is best when it is holistic, notpiecemeal, when it is broadly humanistic, not narrowlybehavioristic

Today, the emphasis in education and training should not be toteach people how to store information or respond mechanically

to stimuli as much as it should be to teach people how to think,how to navigate information, and how to create meaning andvalue out of experience

Paulo Friere in his book Pedagogy of the Oppressed says that

education should pose problems for people to solve, rather thangive pat answers for people to memorize A problem-posingapproach to a subject will generally yield far better results in thelong run than an answer-giving approach The linear learning ofWestern science is no match for contextual learning that is non-linear, experiential, multi-layered, and whole-brained

Disease #5: Mind/Body Separation

Western scientific thinking has not only disconnectedindividuals from nature and from a holistic experience of theworld, it has likewise disconnected individuals withinthemselves Just as everything in nature was thought of asseparate and distinct, so was the mind and the body Therational mind, then, became the focus of education, and thebody was thought of as being totally irrelevant to the learningprocess Learning became rational, verbal, abstract, andsedentary Physical movement was thought not only to beunnecessary, but to be a distraction, and, in many cases, to be asign of low intelligence or of an inherent learning disability

School EntranceRequirement

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The bias against the body as a vehicle of learning is profoundand widespread in Western culture "Sit still, don't wiggle, andlearn!" is the rule Edward T Hall pointed to this bias back in

1976 in an observation about American schooling that couldjust as well have been written today:

"The way children are treated in schools

is sheer madness Those who can't sitstill are stuck with the hyperactive labeland treated as anomalies and frequentlydrugged."

Corporations too have inherited this bias against the body Mosttraining is done sitting down— sometimes for hours at a time

Once in a while there may be a stretch break or a formalized

"energizer," but these are not generally connected with thelearning itself Learning is still thought of as something done bythe disembodied intellect alone and there is little concern aboutkeeping people's whole bodies involved in the learning process,whether in the classroom or on the Web

The Cure

Modern research has shown us how very inaccurate the notion

of a body/mind split is The mind and the body are not twoseparate entities, as we have supposed, but one inseparable andintegrated whole In fact, the mind (as research has demonstratedagain and again) is not confined to the brain, but is distributedthroughout the body And the body affects the brain in so manyways Not only does body movement improve brain circulation,but it produces chemicals essential for neural networkconstruction in the brain As Candice Pert has shown in her

book The Molecules of Emotion., even molecules think, have

memories, and have emotional lives of their own as they movethroughout the body/mind and interact with it

In a very real sense, the mind is the body and the body is themind

Carla Hannaford in her book Smart Moves: Why Learning IsNot All In Your Head reviews much of the evidence of the

inseparable connection between the mind and the body Shepoints out that the frontal lobe of the brain, prominent inthinking and problem solving, also contains the Primary MotorArea which controls muscles all over the body Thinking andmovement are related in the brain

Imagine what this means Whenever we force children to sitquietly and solve problems or force adults to sit quietly and dostrategic planning, we are inhibiting their full thinking andlearning ability So let's change that Let's create learningexperiences for people that get the body and the mind to worktogether actively again

This book is filled with real-world examples of the greatsuccesses that A.L practitioners are having in creating learningprograms that reunite the body and the mind And this bookwill give you all sorts of ideas of what you can do to foster ahealthier mind/body connection in your programs It's true formany people much of the time that "If your body don't move,your brain don't groove." Keep chanting that to yourself It willhelp you overcome the dreaded disease of mind/body separation

Disease #6: Male Dominance

Western culture is paternalistic— as if you hadn't noticed It hastended for centuries to emphasize "male" sensibilities over

"female" ones And this over-masculinization has had a profoundeffect on all of our educational institutions in the West

As an example, the people who put together the first compulsory

educational system in the United States in 19th-century Massachusetts were all men Women had absolutely no input into

it The system was, from the beginning, a guy's thing, reflectingmale perceptions and ways of dealing with reality Not only theadministrators, but all teachers in the new compulsory educationsystem were men "School Masters" they were called Women didnot become teachers until later when men discovered that theywould work for less money Once you realize that the structure ofpublic education in the West was an exclusively male invention,everything else begins to fall into place and make sense

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Reflecting the paternalistic

and sexist character

of Western culture,

Aristotle believed,

and Thomas Aquinas

agreed, that women

were defective men

To avoid an overly simplistic gender dichotomy here, we can usethe hormones testosterone and estrogen as loose metaphors

These hormones reside in men and women alike in variousmixtures and degrees, there being generally more testosterone inmen and more estrogen in women Here's the sorts of behaviorsthese hormones tend to produce (according to research and what

we can tell from common observation) These are tendencies only,and are not mutually exclusive, and reside in men and womenalike to various degrees

Testosterone Attributes Estrogen Attributes

ExclusivenessCompetitionEmphasis on hierarchyDominance behaviorsSequential thinkingLogic

One right wayRigid & dogmatic

InclusivenessCollaborationEmphasis on communityNurturing behaviorsSimultaneous thinkingIntuition

Many right waysFlexible & conditional

Corporate training too has tended to be biased toward the male

in how it structures itself and in what it supports One obviousevidence of this is the "HRD Hall of Fame" promoted by

Lakewood Publications, publisher of Training Magazine and a

division of Bill Communications (controlled mainly by guys) Forthe past 15 years, it has been the men, not the women, that havegotten the accolades Look at the list of Hall of Fame inducteesprinted below

Don't get me wrong I have no quibble with any of the men onthis list They deserve all the honors they have been given Thesemen have made tremendous contributions to the field of training

They are exemplary human beings But despite all that, where inall of God's green earth are the women? Observe:

The Cure

If you look at the failures of education and training today, youhave to conclude that, combined with all the other ailmentsabove, there is just too much testosterone in the system We need

a feminine touch in education and training It's not a matter ofabandoning the masculine but achieving balance— balancebetween the male and the female, balance between the rightbrain and the left, balance between control and nurture, balancebetween yin and yang

The interest in Accelerated Learning has paralleled the rise ofthe feminine influence in Western culture And as morecorporate learning professions and college teachers bring more

of the feminine attributes into learning, the more ourapproaches to learning will achieve a healthy balance— and thebetter will be the results Accelerated Learning does not say

"Eliminate the masculine!" but "Bring the feminine up to aparity with the masculine!" Good learning and healthy life is amix between the two It's never a matter of either/or, but always

HRD Hall of Fame

Year Inductee Gender Year Inductee Gender

1985 Dugan Laird M 1988 Joe Harless MBobMager M 1990 Martin Broadwell MGordon Lippitt M 1991 Ben Tregoe MThomas Gilbert M 1992 Ken Blanchard MMalcolm Knowles M 1993 Pat McLagan F

1986 George Odiorne M 1994 Jack Zenger MGeary Rummler M 1995 Ned Herrmann M

1987 LenNadler M 1996 Peter Block MRobert Blake M 1998 Gloria Geary FJane Mouton F 1999 Scott Parry M

1988 Warren Bennis M

18 men = 85.7% • 3 women = 14.3%

Diagnosis: Hormone imbalance

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!6 T H E A C C E L E R A T E D L E A R N I N G H A N D B O O K

a matter of both/and Balance

Though we are making progress, we still have a ways to go to

restore a balance between testosterone and estrogen in oursystems of learning and in our culture at large Academicinstitutions still tend to be biased toward "maleness." Candice

Pert, in her book The Molecules of Emotion, recounts some of

the obstacles and put-offs she experienced as a researcher inthe academic halls of the male scientific establishment

Disease #7: The Printing Press

We may not realize it now since books are so widespread, butthe printing press, invented by Johannes Gutenberg in the1440s, has had a profound and abiding effect on education andtraining in the West It has:

1 Emphasized words over images

2 Made learning a linear, one-thing-at-a-time process

3 Emphasized abstract concepts over concrete experience inlearning

4 Elevated the "masculine" left brain over the "feminine"

right brain

5 Supported individualism over collaboration in learning

The Elevation of Verbal Intelligence

Before the invention of the printing press when the majority ofthe population was illiterate, learning was driven by concreteexperience, by oral tradition, by face-to-face contact, by grouplife, by pictures and images and symbols, and by immersion into

a total context Learning was a holographic, gestalt, concreteaffair It had to be

Gutenberg's invention changed all that Books becamewidespread Verbal abstractions stole the show from concreteexperience People no longer had to immerse themselves in real-world contexts or hang out with others in order to learn Theycould learn in isolation all by themselves by reading books

C U R I N G T H E W E S T ' S E D U C A T I O N A L D I S E A S E S 2?

Words in books, then, became the standard tool for acquiringknowledge The fact that words must be processed sequentiallyadded to the left-brain turn of Western mind As the bookbecame the major vehicle for education, learning came toemphasize a mechanical, linear, one-thing-at-a-time process

And so today, the more books you read and the more verbalsymbols you can manipulate, the more "educated" you areconsidered to be in our Gutenberg-centered learning culture

And you'll never get the highest of earned academic degreesuntil you write your own book (called a dissertation)

Books are good tools for learning But by themselves, withoutthe balance of whole-brain experience, they can be deficient increating genuine knowledge and understanding True learning is

a matter of both/and— both books and experience, both wordsand images, both left brain and right, both sequential andsimultaneous processing, both abstract reflection and concreteexperience

But thanks to the printing press, education and training todaytend to be almost exclusively left-brained and word-based

When we think of designing training materials, what comes tomind are WORDS: words in reference materials, words instudent workbooks, words on overheads, words in PowerPointpresentations, words on computer screens— words, words,words Training designers become mainly word crafters,forgetting that they need to be image crafters and experiencecrafters as well

Educational

Before Gutenberg

concrete experienceimages

whole-brain learningholographic processinglearning by doinglearning in contextlearning with othi

Emphasis

After Gutenberg

abstract conceptswords

left-brain learninglinear processinglearning by readinlearning off linelearning by your

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Both books and concrete experience contribute to our learning.

There are times when everything in both lists (on previouspage) can be used to help us learn But it's still true that:

If you seek information, read words

If you seek understanding, have experiences

To make learning more effective it needs to beexperience-based more than exclusively word-based, whether in the classroom or on the Web

Yet when designing learning programs, we oftenput most of our time, money, and energy intocreating presentations and learning materials Butpeople learn more from experiences (with feedback) thanthey will ever learn from presentations and materials, no matterhow polished they might be

Accelerated learning, therefore, calls for experience-centeredlearning programs, not presentation-centered or materials-centered ones You learn how to swim by swimming You learnhow to manage by managing You learn how to use a computer

by using a computer Learning comes from doing the work itself,not from merely reading about it or from hearing someone elsetalk about it

The cure to an over-Gutenbergized, left-brained learning culture

is to immerse learners fully in a subject Make their learningactivity-based Give them as authentic a real-world context asyou can Base their learning in experience (with feedback)

Enable them to learn on many levels simultaneously Involvetheir whole brain, their whole body, and all their senses in thelearning

You may very well need presentations and materials, but not asthe centerpieces of your designs The best designs areexperience-based You add presentations and materials only toinitiate and support those experiences, not to be a substitute forthem

Farewell to Harms

Clearly modern schooling and contemporary training cansometimes stifle and disable people and rob them of the joy oflearning It can keep them from exercising their full mind andrealizing their full potential But once you understand thecultural source of our learning dysfunctions, you can dosomething about it You can begin to move education andtraining in the direction of greater health

As a matter of fact, the whole aim of accelerated learningand of this book is to help people like yourself restoregreater health and vitality to learning in schools,businesses, homes, everywhere "All goodlearning," someone once said, "is therapy." To

be an accelerated learning practitioner, then, is

to be a kind of healer and therapist, restoringwholeness to the learning process and, thus, tothe learners themselves

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THE CURE

Learning that isjoyful, nurturing, andlearner-centered

learners Isolationand disconnectedness

Collaboration betweenlearners in a learningcommunity

The Factory Model One-size-fits all assembly

line learning Time-basedand prescriptive

A smorgasbord ofoptions Results-basedand creative

Western Scientific Thought Linear, mechanistic, and

compartmentalizedapproaches to learning

Holistic, contextual,and interconnectedapproaches to learning

Mind/Body Separation Learning that is cognitive,

verbal, left-brained, andphysically passive

Learning that is brained, multisensory,and physically active

whole-Male Dominance Emphasis on control,

rational intelligence, andsequential processing

Emphasis on nurture,whole-brain intelligence,and simultaneousprocessing

The Printing Press Words and abstract

concepts as the foundation

of learning

Images and concreteexperience as thefoundation of learning

PART 2

10

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CHAPTER 4

The Brain

and Learning

Accelerated Learning is based on how people naturally learn It

finds in modern brain research helpful metaphors of how the

brain learns, and it seeks to design effective "brain-based"

learning environments accordingly

There has been more brain research in the last 25 years than in

all of human history combined There is still much we don't

know about the brain (and probably never will) But what we

are discovering about the brain and learning seriously challenges

many of our conventional educational beliefs and practices

Brain Theories as Metaphors

All brain theories, of course, are oversimplifications But they

can serve as useful metaphors for helping us think about the

complex organism of the brain in practical, concrete ways

There are many views of the brain today, no one view giving us

the whole picture by any means, but all views contributing to a

richer understanding of how the brain learns These views are

not so much contradictory as complementary

Here's one view: The brain is a chemical soup that

communicates throughout all of its regions by manufacturing,

distributing, and interacting with a myriad of different

chemicals

Here's another view: The brain is part of an electrical network

of wiring that is distributed throughout the body and constantly

sending and receiving messages The amount of wiring is vast

The brain alone contains more than 100,000 miles of wiring

This wiring (called axons and dendrites) has millions of

interactions a second with itself, with the network distributed

There has been moreresearch into the brainand learning in the last

25 years than in all ofhuman history combined

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Still another view: The brain is like a hologram where all partscontain the whole, and "memory" is distributed throughout thetotal system When anything is truly learned, according to this

theory, it is learned by the brain and body as a whole The

brain/body is a simultaneous processor, not a sequential one It

is designed to process total contexts or "gestalts," and not oneisolated thing at a time

The Theory of the Triune Brain

Another view of the brain that has gained popularity over thelast 20 years is the theory of the Triune Brain ("triune" means

"three in one") According to this theory, the human brain can

be thought of as having three separate (though interconnected)areas of specialization: The Reptilian Brain, the Limbic System,and the Neocortex

Brain research is a fast-moving science and new discoveries areoverturning old ones every day So don't take any description ofbrain functioning (including this one) as absolute There iscertainly truth in the Triune Brain Theory, but this truth isunavoidably oversimplified and incomplete Yet it has real valuefor us in understanding how the brain learns Here's a briefdescription of the specialties of these three aspects of the brainaccording to the Triune Brain theory:

The Neocortex This is the brain cap, the convoluted cover of

grey matter that comprises about 80-85% of your brain mass

It is essential for many higher-level functions such as language,abstract thought, problem solving, forward planning, finemovement, and creativity It's what makes us uniquely human

The Limbic System This is the midbrain that plays a big role in

bonding and in emotions It's the social and emotional brain Italso contains equipment essential for long-term memory

The Reptilian Brain This is the primal part of the brain (so

named because reptiles have it too) Its major goal is survival(although it's not the only part of the brain concerned aboutthis) It governs automatic functions like your heartbeat andcirculatory system It is the seat of instinctual, repetitivebehavior and tends to follow precedent and routine blindly andritualistically It is believed to be the part of the brain involved

in hierarchical power struggles It knows how to deceive whennecessary for its survival It's an animal

One Interconnected Brain

Again, the Triune Brain idea is an oversimplification Thesethree "brains" are interlinked in one total organism and oftenparticipate in each other's specialties in complex, subtle, andessential ways It's best to think of these three aspects of thebrain, then, not as physical locations, but as clearing houses forspecialized functions None of the three clearing housesworks alone All of them have relationships with the otherclearing houses for help in fulfilling their functions

Vigorous amounts of sharing and exchange go on inthe brain all the time

Nothing in the world is singleAll things by a law divine

In one another's essence mingle

-Shelley

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What's This Got to Do With Learning?

Everything Traditional learning in the Industrial Age tended toemphasize the Reptilian functions: rote learning, repeat-after-

me, the teacher as power center, the learner as passive obedientservant following a routine and precedent established by thehierarchy, a system driven by survival (the fear of failure), littleconcern with feelings and with social bonding in the educationalsetting, little effort to teach learners how to create, problemsolve, and think on their own (Too much independent thinking

on the part of the learner, in fact, was considered subversive and

a sign of insubordination.)

Using the Whole Brain for Learning

Today we need to use the powers of the total mind and thewhole self for learning (mind, body, emotions, and all the

senses) We know that using the whole brain is the key to

making learning faster, more interesting, and more effective

We certainly need to keep our Reptilian function alive with itssurvival instincts and automatic functions Some obedience toprecedent and routine is necessary and positive But we need alot more than that in order to be fully alive

We need to involve the Limbic function in learning Emotions,

as research and common sense have verified, have a profoundeffect on the quality and quantity of learning Positive feelingsspeed learning (There is nothing that accelerates learning morethan a sense of joy.) Negative feelings slow learning or stop italtogether One of the major goals of the Preparation Phase ofthe Accelerated Learning Cycle is to create positive feelings inthe learner Another goal is to awaken the social intelligence ofthe Limbic system Get learners to collaborate, rather thancompete, say the researchers, and the learning will improvesignificantly

And we need to fully exercise the Neocortex function of thebrain if we want to optimize learning and human performance

We do this by teaching learners how to think for themselves,how to navigate (rather than store) information, how to learn,

how to imagine, and how to create meaning and value forthemselves out of information and experience

Feelings Are Central

When feelings are positive and learners are in a relaxed, openstate, they can "upshift" into the Neocortex (the learning brain)

When feelings are negative and learners are stressed, they tend

to "downshift" into the Reptilian brain with its concern not forlearning but for survival Learning then slows or comes to ascreeching halt

The Body Is the Mind; The Mind Is the Body

The brain and body are inseparably connected in a myriad ofways Body movement, as an example, can improve brain

functioning as Carla Hannaford points out in her book Smart

Moves: Why Learning Is Not All in Your Head And certain

brain states can have a profound effect on the body

Thinking, learning, and memory, after all, are not confined toyour head, but are distributed throughout the body Muchthinking, learning, and decision making, for instance, takes

place on the cellular and molecular level as Candice Pert points out in her book The Molecules of Emotion.

Traditional education has separated the body and the mind Ithas treated learning as a "head" thing, as a rational, verbalprocess having little to do with the body with all its feelings andsenses

Because of this, we have tended to create learning environmentsthat say to children (and adults): "Sit down, don't wiggle, and

be quiet while you learn!" Rather, we should say, "Stand up,move around, and make noise while you learn!" Bodilymovement stimulates the secretion of chemicals that areessential for neural network construction in the brain, and thisaids learning

Researchers discovered some time ago that functions likethinking and bodily movement are intimately connected in the

Sitting still in confinedplaces is one of theworst punishments thatcan be inflicted on thehuman species.Yet, this is what werequire of students

in school

-Edward T Hall

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brain As an example, the part of your neocortex that governsthinking and problem solving lives right next door to the part ofyour neocortex that controls fine motor skills throughout yourbody It's true to one degree or another for everybody that "Ifyour body don't move, your brain don't groove."

The body and the mind are not two separate entities, but onetotally integrated whole In a very real sense, the mind is thebody, and the body is the mind The nervous system and thecirculatory system tie them together as one

Behaviorism and the Brain

Behaviorism was the reigning academic psychology in theUnited States for the greater part of the 20th century As such, ithas had a profound affect on corporate training

According to what we now know about the brain, it is clear thatBehaviorism had never been a whole-brain psychology but was,almost exclusively, the psychology of the Reptilian Brain

Behaviorism had great insights into the Reptilian aspect of thebrain, as far as they went It's true that there is a part of us that

is mechanical and ritualistic, that automatically responds tovarious external stimuli, and that can learn how to internalizeand repeat various programmed behaviors The problem withBehaviorism was that it presented itself (often quitedogmatically) as talking about the whole brain when it wasdealing with only one aspect of it

There is more to us than mechanistic, reptilian,stimulus/response functioning But Behaviorism didn't addressthis It had very little to say about social and emotionalintelligence (the Limbic System), and less to say about creativeand innovative thinking (the neocortex) And it took no interest

at all in tapping into the wisdom hidden in the soul

Training suffered as a result People were taught how to react in

a standard way, not how to think outside the box Trainingbecame the programmed installation of controllable, repeatable,predictable, mechanical behaviors "Performance Technology"

(Behaviorism's new label) often does no better, although some

Behaviorism- the belief

that all learning consists

of learning This means, among other things, that we stopprescribing human performance (i.e., behaviors) andconcentrate on results, encouraging people to constantly create

ways of better achieving the results, and of achieving even better

results

We often confuse means and ends, as is shown by our use of theterm "Performance Objective," a glaring oxymoron if ever therewas one Performance is a means, not an end in itself It is ameans by which some particular value can be created Theperformance "means," then, need not be dogmaticallyprescribed, but can take all sorts of innovative forms, many ofwhich can be created by the learners themselves

Learning Is Life

It's true that all life is learning, but it's also true that, in a veryreal sense, all learning is life Studies have indicated that peoplewho continue to learn and mentally grow throughout their livesare much less likely to suffer from Alzheimer's disease Thebrain can continually grow dendrites and new neural networksfar into old age when stimulated with new learning challenges,

as Cynthia Short points out in her brain exercise book for senior

citizens, Dendrites Are Forever The secrets of the fountain of

youth, it seems, are exercise, the right diet, and continuallearning

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The Implications of Brain Research for Learning

Modern theories of how the brain works are in conflictwith many of our traditional assumptions about thebrain and learning These new theories, in fact, havedeep and revolutionary implications for all educationand training in Western culture Here are just a fewthings you can do to assure that the learning programsyou design and deliver are keeping pace with what wenow know about the brain and learning

• Create learning environments that reduce stress andcreate positive feelings in people so they can "upshift"

into their full learning brains

• Provide people with problem-posing and informationaccessing exercises that stimulate them to think, makeconnections, build new neural networks, and createactionable meaning and value for themselves

• Make learning social Collaboration among learnersengages more of the total brain and improves thequality and quantity of learning

,• Get people out of their seats and provideopportunities for physical movement and activity aspart of the learning process

• Delinearize and decompartmentalize informationwherever you can and provide a total real-worldcontext into which people can immerse their full selvesand learn with all their senses on many levelssimultaneously

CHAPTER 5

The SAVI Approach

to Learning

Activity-Based Learning (ABL)

Learning With the Whole Self

Activity-Based Learning (ABL) means getting physicallyactive while you learn, using as many senses as possible,and getting your whole body/mind involved in thelearning process

Conventional training tends to keep people physicallyinactive for long periods of time Brain paralysis sets in andlearning slows to a creep or stops altogether Getting people upand moving periodically awakens the body, improvescirculation to the brain, and can have a positive impact onlearning

Activity-based learning is generally far more effective thanpresentation-based, materials-based, and media-based learning

And the reason for this is simple: It gets the whole person totally

involved It's been proven over and over again that people often

learn more from well-chosen activities and experiences thanthey do from sitting in front of a presenter, a manual, a TV, or

a computer

Physical movement improves mental processing The part of thehuman brain involved in bodily movement (the motor cortex) istucked in right next to the part of the brain used for thinkingand problem solving To restrict bodily movement, then, is tohamper the mind from functioning at its best On the otherhand, to involve the body in learning tends to invoke one's fullintegrated intelligence

If there is one thing

we should knowfrom years and years

of experience,it's thatsleep learningdoesn't work

40

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Don't Just Sit There Do Something.

Young children are such great learners because they usetheir whole bodies and all their senses to learn Could youimagine a young child learning anything sitting in alecture hall for a long stretch of time? What we fail torealize is that the same is true with most adults Learning

is always hampered when we separate the body and themind, disregard the body, and appeal to rationalconsciousness alone as the gateway to the mind

For many people, the mind falls asleep when there is nochance for some physical involvement I'm like that myself At

Training '99 in Chicago, I attended a keynote on how to make

dynamic presentations I fell stone cold asleep in the first 10minutes I wondered how many other people were glazing out,not because the presentation didn't have value, but because theywere not allowed to move their bodies Many learners find ithard to concentrate without doing something physical (If theirbodies don't move, their brains don't groove.) After years ofobserving unconscious audiences everywhere, I have come to the

conclusion that sleep learning doesn't work.

The SAVI Approach to Learning

Learning doesn't automatically improve by having people stand

up and move around But combining physical movement withintellectual activity and the use of all the senses can have a

profound effect on learning I call this SAVI learning The

components are easy to remember

1 Somatic: Learning by moving and doing

2 Auditory: Learning by talking and hearing

3 Visual: Learning by observing and picturing

4 Intellectual: Learning by problem solving and reflectingAll four of these learning modes have to be present for optimallearning to occur Since these elements are all integrated, the bestkind of learning occurs when they are all used simultaneously

Here's more detail on each of these four modes

1 Somatic Learning

"Somatic" is from the Greek word for body— soma (as in

Psychosomatic) It denotes tactile, kinesthetic, hands-on

learning— getting physical and using and moving your bodywhile you learn

Bias Against the Body

Strong somatic learners, however, are at a disadvantage inWestern culture, which has a long history of separating the bodyand the mind and disregarding the body as a vehicle forlearning According to the false belief of Western culture,learning involves the "head" alone and has nothing to do withwhat's below it As a result, the "sit down, don't squirm, andshut up" approach to learning is the standard in schools andcorporations

The persecution of somatic learners continues to this day, andhas even increased in the past 20 years Children who aresomatic, who can't sit still but who must move their bodies inorder to keep their minds alive are often considered disruptive,learning disabled, and a menace to the system They're labeled

"hyperactive." And sometimes they are drugged

But for many children hyperactivity is normal and healthy It'stheir natural state of being Yet, hyperactive children sometimessuffer because their schools don't have a clue what to do withthem except to pronounce them abnormal and disabled

Edward T Hall, in his book Beyond Culture., complained about

this way back in 1976

"The way children are treated in schools issheer madness Those who can't sit still arestuck with the hyperactive label and treated asanomalies and frequently drugged."

If your body don't move,your brain don't groove

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44 T H E A C C E L E R A T E D L E A R N I N G H A N D B O O K

Though Hall wrote these words 25 years ago, not much haschanged The bias against the body continues There arecurrently about 5 million school children in the United Statestaking daily drugs for ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder) andADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) Who saidschools were drug-free zones? There is a legitimate ADD andADHD condition that can and should be helped by drugs, butone recent study concluded that about 80% of the children now

on school-administered drugs have been misdiagnosed They aresimply normal, healthy, hyperactive (i.e., physically active) kids

The Body and the Mind Are One

Today, the mind/body split of Western culture and the prejudiceagainst the use of the body in learning are being seriouslychallenged Neurological research has exploded the false belief

of Western culture that the mind and body are separate entities

Their findings indicate that the mind is distributed throughoutthe body In essence, the body IS the mind The mind IS thebody The two are one completely integrated electrical-chemical-biological system So by inhibiting somatic learners from usingtheir full physical bodies in learning, we are hampering the fullfunction of their minds (Perhaps in some cases it is theeducational system that's learning disabled and not theindividual learners at all.)

Two helpful books that report on some of the research into the

body-mind connection are Carla Hannaford's Smart Moves:

Why Learning Is Not All in Your Head and Candice Pert's The Molecules of Emotion.

Getting the Body Involved

In order to stimulate the mind-body connection, create learningevents that get people up and out of their seats and physicallyactive from time to time Not all learning needs to be physicallyactive, but by alternating between physically active andphysically passive learning activities you can help everyone'slearning Here are some examples of how you can get learners

physically involved in the learning.

T H E S A V I A P P R O A C H TO L E A R N I N G 45

People can take roles as props and components to

actively simulate such things as:

People can get physical while they:

• Build a model of a process

or procedure

• Physically manipulatecomponents of a process

In teams, create activelearning exercises for thewhole class

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2 Auditory Learning

Our auditory minds are stronger than we realize Our earscontinually capture and store auditory information, even withoutour conscious awareness And when we make our own sounds bytalking, several significant areas of our cerebrum are activated

Before Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press in the1440s, most information was transmitted from generation togeneration auditorially The epics and myths and tales of allancient cultures were passed down through oral tradition:

Beouwlf, Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, Gilgamesh, and countless

more And, as you can imagine, they were told with a dramatic,emotional and auditory richness that added to their memorability

The ancient Greeks encouraged people to learn out loud by dialog

Their philosophy was: If you want to learn more about anything,talk about it nonstop Auditory learning was the standard for allcultures as far back in history as we can go

The Gutenberg Revolution

After Gutenberg's invention became widely used and people werebecoming literate, everyone read out loud They could not imaginereceiving information without an auditory component As timewore on, the auditory gradually evaporated to the point where our

"Silence Please" libraries now discourage sound altogether

But all learners (particularly strong auditory ones) learn by sounds,

by dialog, by reading out loud, by telling someone out loud whatthey just experienced, heard, or learned, by talking to themselves,

by remembering jingles and rhymes, by listening to audiocassettes, and by repeating sounds in their heads

Bringing Back the Auditory

The need to bring the dialog and the sound back into

learning is reflected in a recent Dr Seuss book, Hooray for Diffendoofer Day It's all about a school that seeks to be

effective by reversing some of the learning inhibitors that have

When we're reading to ourselves

In designing courses that appeal to the strong auditorychannels in people, look for ways to get learners to talk aboutwhat they are learning Have them translate experience intosound Ask them to read out loud— dramatically if they wish Getthem to talk out loud while they solve problems, manipulatemodels, gather information, make action plans, master skills,review learning experiences, or create personal meanings forthemselves

Here Is a brief list of starter ideas for increasing the

use of the auditory in learning.

• Have learners read outloud from manuals andcomputer screens

• Have learners readmaterials a paragraph at atime paraphrasing eachparagraph into a taperecorder Then ask them

to listen to the tapeseveral times forreinforcement

• Ask learners to createtheir own audio tape ofkey words, processes,definitions, or procedures

• Tell learners stories thathave the learning materialembedded in them

• Have learners in pairsdescribe to each other indetail what they justlearned and how they aregoing to apply it

• Ask learners to practice askill or perform a functionwhile describing out loud

in great detail whatthey're doing

• Have learners create arap, rhyme or auditorymnemonic out of whatthey are learning

• Ask learners in groups totalk nonstop when doingcreative problem solving

or long-term planning

(The conversations can

be recorded to captunthe ideas.)

46

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Several years ago I was given a grant from the U.S Government

to study the effects of mental imagery on learning Mycolleague, Dr Owen Caskey of Texas Tech University, and Ifound that the people who used imagery to learn technical andscientific information did, on average, 12% better on immediaterecall than those who did not use imagery, and 26% better onlong-term retention And this statistic held for everyoneregardless of age, ethnicity, gender, or preferred learning style

Helping Learners See the Point

It helps everyone (particularly the visual learner) to "see" what

a presenter or book or computer program is talking about

Visual learners learn best when they can see real-worldexamples, diagrams, idea maps, icons, pictures, and images ofall kinds while they are learning

And sometimes they learn even better when they create theirown idea maps, diagrams, icons, and images out of what theyare learning When seventh and eighth graders in New Jerseywere asked to create large mural-size pictograms out of theirhomework, both their learning and their interest went up

It helps adults also to create pictograms, icons, or dimensional table-top displays, and other visuals out of theirlearning material One organization, seeking to reinforce certainoperational procedures in a factory, had the machine operatorsthemselves create their own colorful icons, pictograms, and jobaids that they then displayed around the shop floor and on theirmachines

three-Another technique that works for everyone, especially for

people with strong visual skills, is to ask them to observe a

real-world situation and then to think and talk about it, drawing out

T H E S A V I A P P R O A C H T O L E A R N I N G 49

the processes, principles, or meanings that it illustrated

Here are a few more things you can use to make

learning more visual

• Picturesque language(metaphors, analogies)

• Vivid presentationgraphics

We really have to define this one By "Intellectual," I don't mean

an emotionless, disconnected, rationalistic, "academic" andcompartmentalized approach to learning

For me the word "Intellectual" indicates what learners do intheir minds internally as they exercise their intelligence to reflect

on experience and to create connections, meanings, plans, andvalues out of it It's the reflecting, creating, problem-solving, andmeaning-building part of a person

The Intellectual (according to the way I'm using the term) is thesense maker of the mind; the means by which the humanbeing "thinks," integrates experience, creates new neuralnetworks, and learns It connects the body's mental,physical, emotional, and intuitive experiences together tobuild fresh meaning for itself It's the means by which themind turns experience into knowledge, knowledge intounderstanding, and understanding (we hope) into wisdom

When a learning exercise, no matter how clever it is, does notsufficiently challenge this intellectual side of a learner, the

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